Does media affect society and mass audience?

By Zeinab Hassan 

The problem of Media influence on the mass audience has been of interest to many countries for about a century. At the beginning of the 20th century, when the mass media of information transmission finally took shape, the idea of mass manipulation of society became possible. With the advent of the Internet, television and radio, the world has become more informational. Information has become not only the privilege of a minority, but the everyday and necessary content of a wide audience. Thus, the relevance of this topic is obvious, communication has changed, which has new means, and, accordingly, goals. Mass communication, or in other words, Media has become a broadcaster of the entire information environment of society, and it has become the most important and one of the main political instruments in the world. In descending order of effectiveness, the ways of presenting information can perhaps be divided as follows: live - photo - video - audio - printed word. Despite the fact that the world is actively included in the global computer network, yet at the moment the most massive communication group is the audience of television. Traditional sources of information compete with each other in some ways, complement each other in some ways, but together they are the most advanced media.

Mass media like radio, press, television. Recently, they also began to include the Internet, which quickly found distribution in modern society and penetrated the homes and minds of a huge number of people in the world. Media is a rather peculiar phenomenon of modern reality. It is not that part of our life like air, water or food, it does not represent any material value. At the same time, media has its own long history of development, its own laws of existence and functioning, the world of the media is constantly evolving, living, breathing. The world of media is inextricably linked with the processes taking place in society. These processes - aliments, are the basis of the development of the media. From this we understand that media is completely dependent on society. Perhaps it was like this before, as the media developed and became established. However, in the modern world, when media has become not only a means of transmitting information, but also the strongest tool for manipulating and instilling new values, as well as creating counter-values, it is already difficult to clearly define these dependencies. One thing is absolutely clear - we are dependent on media and dependent, perhaps even more than media is on society. Perhaps we, without noticing it, have long become part of the world's Media and live according to its laws.

The twenty-first century is the time of the development of information technologies, systems, the age of information and opportunities.With the development of psychology, a variety of methods and ways of influencing human consciousness were discovered, applying this to the media - they received almost the full impact of the media on society. Now this influence is increasingly becoming dangerous, rather than useful and educational. At present, people are trying not only to convince of something, but to convey and inspire something, and not at all with the help of solid arguments, but with the help of various methods, for example, multiple repetitions, using the technical capabilities of equipment to manipulate facts, changing  frames every 4 seconds to engage the audience.

It must be admitted that it really has become one of the power structures in modern society, and one can hardly argue about this now. It remains only to try answering the questions which, in connection with this state of affairs, began to worry many analysts and specialists in this field. Is this good or bad? Where are the limits of its power and what is its power of influence? Or maybe the power of the media has no boundaries at all?

However, the most effective means of influencing the consciousness of society, of course, in the first place, is television. It is the most powerful and efficient channel of influence on the human psyche and mind. The presence and appearance of not only a voice, but also a bright “live” picture on the screen is, of course, why television is the most popular among other electronic media. Consequently, it also has a large number of levers of influence and pressure on public consciousness and opinion. Undoubtedly, in the modern world, the media is the most important and effective tool for forming opinions in society and have a huge number of methods and means of influencing the public consciousness not only of a person, but of the entire state.